What will a library be tomorrow?

A hybrid, multimedia space for knowledge access and activation - as has been the case for much of its history.

So said Jeffrey Schnapp, Faculty Director at metaLAB, Harvard, speaking at the recent symposium on the future library at Trinity College Dublin.

Schnapp was quoted by Hugh Lineham in an insightful review of the symposium for the Irish Times. Other speakers included Mike Keller of Stanford, Richard Ovenden of the Bodleian, and conference organiser Helen Shenton, the librarian and archivist at Trinity College.

"Far from disappearing, libraries are going through a transformation that puts them in a central role within the much-vaunted knowledge economy and moves them into areas as conceptually challenging as they are exciting."